Take Your Time
by Dragon Empress
Summary: It's ten o'clock and still bright outside. Outside the window the summer is unfolding...' Everything has consequences, in love and in science, and Reed Richards knows this better than anyone... [ReedSue]


**Greetings, all! This is something of a companion piece to my previous story, dealing with the fall-out from Reed and Sue's messy break-up, because for some reason their pain is proving to be quite fun and easy to write about. It's probably not a good sign...**

**DISCLAIMER: I OWNS NOTHING!**

**Now, on with the show!**

_- - -_

_Talk, talk to Suzie  
__I went through a million choices  
__Talk…Suzie!  
__I listened to a million voices_

_And they said,  
__Don't let me down, they said  
__Don't let me down again_

_-Suzie  
__Boy Kill Boy_

- - -

_One day…one day of many…_

- - -

It's ten o'clock and still bright outside. Outside the window the summer is unfolding.

Sometimes, he just sits here for hours with the all lights off, and wonders what it would have been like it they'd had _more time._ Usually he starts when it's light out and doesn't move again until each individual streetlight has burst into colour, and the laughter of children has mutated into the humourless cackle of the drunk and the wasteful. He is quieter now, and more alone, but there is nobody else around to see it, so it's almost as if it isn't really happening at all.

Really, Reed would like to sit here all night and pretend that it's all just a dream, a nightmare; he wants to close his eyes and then open them up again to a scenario that's completely different, but knows better than to try and rely on fiction now, when his entire life has revolved around nothing but facts. It seems too late to change now. It seems too late to change a lot of things.

Because the facts are telling him now that she isn't ever coming back, and it twists in his stomach like a scalpel to the flesh. There are occasions where he is alone for days at a time, with just textbooks and microscopes to keep him company; the phone bill goes unpaid for three months because nobody notices.

Slowly, invisibly, he begins to fall into disrepair, and makes up for it by telling himself that these problems are only temporary, and that once he gets his serious research back on track everything is going to be alright again. He tells himself that he's going to be fine, because there's really nobody else around to listen.

So he just tells himself that it's better this way anyway, and when Ben calls around he makes all the usual excuses for his absences and tells him that no, he won't be joining him at the bar tonight, or tomorrow or any other day in the near future.

There is far too much work to be done.

- - -

_One day she says, _

"_With all these classes together, I can't believe that we didn't speak sooner." He watches her eyes and the lines of her mouth. "Perhaps if things had been different, we could have been friends." _

"_There's still time." He assures her, and she blushes like a sunset. _

_He thinks that it's never too late to develop a sense of poetry. _

- - -

It's been more than a long time, but eventually they come together again, on his breaks and when she's lonely, to sit upstairs on the roof and watch the way Manhattan changes from evening to night. His hands are wrapped loosely around the railing at the edge, and he enjoys the coolness and the smoothness of the metal beneath his fingers.

She stands beside him, silent and inside herself, blue eyes darkened like the colour of a storm off in the distance. He often thinks (and has thought so in the past) that her surname is beautiful just because it's so honest, and wonders idly if these are the sort of thoughts he should be having right now at all. Because she occupies his mind in a way that science never could, and it scares him to know that, even after years apart, he will still drop everything (his work and his promises) to be with her like he is right now. It is, for a moment or two, almost as if nothing has changed at all.

But then out of nowhere, she whispers, "I miss being normal."

And he wants to tell her that he misses it as well, even though the only time he really enjoyed normal was when he was with her.

So he just says, "Me too", and finds that he only has to lie a little.

- - -

"_Perhaps if things-"_

_He watches the door slam, and the depth of his anger is new and stunning. He waits. Always waiting. _

"_Perhaps if-" _

_She's coming back. She is. She has to. _

"_Perhaps-"_

_There are too many things he didn't say, and they bounce and echo off walls of his heart. His regrets, they are legion, and the taste of apology is bitter on his tongue. _

_Seconds pass…minutes…an hour. The streetlights throw his shadow long and jagged across the floor; he must have been standing there for a very long time. _

"_Perhaps if things had been different, we could have been friends..."_

_He tells her that he's sorry, but the words are hollow and nobody is listening._

- - -

One day…one day of many…one day she was gone, and now she is not.

He tells himself that, this time, he won't let her down. He tells himself that everything will be different. He will be different.

And then, without further pause, he picks up his pen and his notepad and gets rolling.

_The only time he ever really enjoyed normal was when he was with her-_

There is far too much work to be done. Always.

- - -

**Well, there we go. I know that Reed is an extremely hard character to pin down, being all cute and dyfunctional as he is, but still, I think I gave it a good shot. And let's face it, Sue would have dealt with the break-up a thousand times better than he would have, as we all know that the poor soul struggles with anything that can't be charted out on graph paper...**

**Nonetheless, before I ramble, all I ask of you lovely reader-people is that you leave me a quick review, so I can know in advance if I should pack it all in and flee to the Himalayas or not...**


End file.
